Sean K. Ellis spent nearly 22 years in prison for the 1993 murder of Boston Det. John Mulligan. Ellis claimed innocence, and in 2015 the courts overturned his conviction, ruling "justice was not done" (unanimously upheld by the Mass. SJC in 2016). A retrial -his 4th- is scheduled for Oct. 18, 2018.

SEAN'S LIFE

METCO student

Sean Ellis was born in Boston in July 1974 to Mary "Jackie" Ellis and her husband, John Ellis. The couple later divorced, and Jackie moved from Boston's Dorchester section to a housing project across town in Roslindale. Wanting a better education for her children than was available in her neighborhood, she enrolled Sean and two other of her children in METCO, the voluntary school integration program run by the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity that buses selected Boston students to high-performing suburban schools. The benefits flow both ways, for the primarily white outlying schools benefit from the injection of diversity. Sean, his sister, Jeanelle, and their half-brother, Joseph Moody, were all enrolled in the Needham, Massachusetts, schools.

Sean Ellis in third grade: top row, fifth from left. Typically, just one or two African-American students were placed in each suburban classroom through METCO.

Bereaved brother

Sean's brother, Joseph Moody, died in Needham at age 12.

In 1984, Sean's brother, Joseph, a popular and witty student at Needham's Pollard Middle School, tragically drowned at a classmate's pool party one hot June day. He hadn't told anybody he couldn't swim.

After Joseph's death, Sean would ride his bike over to his brother's grave and sit on the grass all afternoon, gazing into the distance. He eventually asked to leave the Needham schools. By that time his mother had moved back to Dorchester, and Sean transferred to Dorchester High, where he played football and was interested in computers. He graduated in 1992.

Hansborough boy

During the early '90s, Sean's mother's corner of Dorchester was a hotbed of street violence. As a teenager, Sean cast his lot with a group of friends who hung on Hansborough Street. Termed a posse by police, the boys were nonetheless devoted friends who provided each other security and support, often in lieu of families. When streets became battlefields, they watched each others' backs and, in being together, felt safe. A band of brothers, so to speak...

Was Sean looking for brothers? Looking back, he believes he was.

After graduating from high school, Sean looked unsuccessfully for jobs. "I sent out job applications, but got no replies," he recalls. By his own admission, he had a few "run ins with the law" as a teen, most stemming from domestic disturbances. There was discord at home, for Sean greatly disliked his mother's live-in boyfriend. Disputes arose, and and Mary "Jackie" Ellis called the cops a couple of times "to teach Sean a lesson."

In one such incident, Sean had taken his then two-year-old sister for a walk around the block, to escape the noisy argument and soothe her crying, when he suddenly felt a policeman's tap on his shoulder. He was arrested for "kidnapping." (The charge was later dropped.)

Arrest

In 1993 Sean was considering entering a mechanic's program at the urging of his cousin, Tracy Brown (who was murdered three days after Mulligan: see "Murder & investigation")...and then came John Mulligan's murder and Sean's arrest. He spent his last free day on October 5, 1993.

Despite negative press commentary about Sean following his arrest (former Boston Globe columnist Mike Barnicle, citing no specifics, called him "a one-man crime wave"), Sean had never been charged with street violence -- and had never been convicted of a crime. "It was all small stuff in Dorchester District Court that was going to be dismissed," Boston Globe reporter John Ellement told this author in a phone interview following Sean's conviction.

Looking back on the dangerous city streets he negotiated daily as a teen, Sean Ellis has said more than once, "If I'd not been in prison, I definitely could have been killed."

Sean's incarceration

In his near-twenty-two years of incarceration, Ellis was a model prisoner, rising in status through the Massachusetts correctional system and earning certification as a paralegal via a correspondence course. At medium-security MCI Norfolk, he was one of a select group of inmates trained to counsel at-risk youth.

In 2013 Sean wrote, "Rather than succumb to the negative pressures of this penal setting, I continuously work to prove my innocence and to better myself."

After having his convictions overturned on May 5, 2015, and being freed on bail on June 3, Sean Ellis attended church -- a free man.

Free at last, June 3, 2015. Sean Ellis leaves Boston's Suffolk Superior Court holding his mother, Mary's, hand. Arrested at age 19, he spent more than half his life in prison for a crime he maintains he did not commit. (Getty Images)